


Son

by Yaoi



Category: DCU (Animated), Teen Titans
Genre: Angst, Apprentice - Freeform, Entrapment, Father-Son, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1345141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yaoi/pseuds/Yaoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin can't understand and Slade only slightly can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Son

Robin touched the tender purple bruise on his cheek, wondering when everything would just end. 

He had been stuck in this hellish apprenticeship for little less than a year now and somehow he was convinced his friends had given up searching for him; just like he had given up hope of ever getting out of here.

Sometimes, Robin wondered what Slade would do if he died. Maybe he would get accidentally shot by police or security guards on a theft mission. Perharps by not being careful as he was always told and suffering the same fate as his parents: falling to death. Maybe by his own doing. Maybe by something so simple as a deadly case of the flu or a robbery gone wrong.

The boy was very sure Slade would not kill him. Beat him to a pulp, yes. Play his mind to the brink of insanity, yes. Slade would drive him through hell and back before he even had the mere thought of taking his life. For Slade, even imagining the boy's death in his dark mind was out of the question. He could not have this boy dead for more reasons than one.

Robin could not exactly pinpoint why. To any other person somewhat aware of the situation, Slade considered the boy's life valuable because he'd spent all his efforts on building up from what Bruce Wayne jaggedly sculpted of the young man and teaching -or rather, forcing upon- him the ways of crime and villainism. If anything were to happen to the boy, it would've been the loss of a fine apprentice with so much potential to be the mercenary's definite successor. This was not the case. Slade was not to be reckoned as a lazy man. 

The uncertainity was not at all one-sided. Honestly, Slade wasn't exactly sure what he was getting out of all this either. Of course, he had an apprentice to do his dirty work for him, someone more rational and skilled than any other Sladebot he had. He had the ability to say he had the boy who hated him the most, who wanted to desperately stop him, who obsessed over finding him, Robin the Boy Wonder; played right into his hands. Yet, he wanted this boy to look up to him with eager eyes, ready to learn whatever the assassin had planned to teach him that day. He wanted to be Robin's true mentor, his teacher. What he really wanted though, was to be like a father to him. Truth be told, Slade was not entirely aware of his subconscious motives. Sometimes, only sometimes, doubt crept up in the back of the villain's mind.

What Slade really wanted was his son.

More often than not, he found himself comparing Robin to his deceased son. They were almost exactly alike. Hardheaded, determined, fueled by a certain fire. Both young men with so much potential to carry on Slade's legacy. He wanted to be to be to Robin what he couldn't be to Grant. Having the boy, mentoring him, teaching him was some twisted form of compensation for that loss even though he could never replace Grant. Somehow, Robin filled a certain void Slade didn't realize he had. 

Yet Robin would remain oblivious to this. For now. He knew Slade wanted to adopt him as his own but never why.

So here he was, silently drowning in exhaustion and misery and confusion and every other like-emotion you could possibly name. While Slade was dealing with his own issues, Robin would remain trapped here. Sometimes he wishes Slade would kill him after all. He also wondered if Slade would kill his friends if he did. It wouldn't have mattered then. All this suffering would've been for nothing if his friends ended up with the same hypothetical fate as him, Robin would be a lost cause and another addition to multiple lists of failures. But he had yet to see the day of freedom and uncertainty and fear when Slade would be only slightly inclined to annihilate him.


End file.
